Roz Barr Architects was commissioned to curate ‘Staging the Baroque’, an exhibition at Castle Howard in North Yorkshire that forms part of Vanbrugh300, a programme of events celebrating the legacy of Vanbrugh on the tercentenary of his death. The show occupies three rooms within the stately home that are connected by an enfilade. The rooms were gutted by fire in 1940 and have never been fully restored. For the exhibition, we chose to hang long black curtains in front of the stone walls framing the audience’s view towards the large windows. This worked to tie the rooms together visually and create a singular narrative as visitors move through the different spaces. The curtains were also a theatrical nod to Vanbrugh’s work as a dramatist.

We worked with graphic designer Studio Mathias Clottu to create boards that hang from picture chains in front of the curtains, and also with filmmaker Thomas Adank to produce a short film. The centre piece of the exhibition is an 8m by 5m plaster model, built in-house at our studio, exploring Vanbrugh’s relationship to buildings and landscape. We designed a companion which described each building and acted as a map to encourage visitors to explore the grounds and monuments.

Exhibition photographs: Thomas Adank